This case, to be heard this term, regards whether employees of private contractors and subcontractors of a public company are protected from retaliation under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley act.

The briefs provide a look into the ongoing debate over whistleblowers. Business groups are saying the cost of compliance would burden small businesses if employees of contractors and subcontractors are covered by the act, while pro-whistleblower groups are urging broad protections for those who report alleged wrongdoing.

Conflicting Decisions on Case

Sarbanes-Oxley established protections from retaliation for employees of public companies who report suspected wrongdoing. In this case, Jackie Lawson and Jonathan Zang sued their former employer, FMR LLC, alleging that they were retaliated against after raising concerns and thus count as whistleblowers under Sarbanes-Oxley.

While FMR LLC, the parent of Fidelity Investments, is privately held, the former employees point out that various Fidelity mutual funds are separately registered investment companies that file reports with the SEC.

Lower courts and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board have offered conflicting takes on whether these former employees qualify for the whistleblower protections. A similar legal tussle is going on over which employees qualify for the anti-retaliation provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act.

The court could also clarify the powers of the Administrative Review Board, said Greg Keating, co-chair of the whistleblowing practice group at Littler Mendelson P.C and one of the authors of the brief from the Society for Human Resource Management or SHRM.

Groups Staking Positions

Business groups maintain that Sarbanes-Oxley only covers public companies, and that covering contractors would burden those companies with the costly task of complying with the statute.

“If SOX were extended to employees of private companies, these human resource professionals would not only be faced with the need to learn unfamiliar securities laws, but they also would be further tasked with conducting complicated fraud investigations,” the brief filed by SHRM said.

Allowing the statute to cover contractors would go “far beyond anything Congress could have possibly intended,” the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or SIFMA, said.

One of the most notable briefs in support of FMR LLC comes from a group of former Securities and Exchange Commission officials, including former Chairman Christopher Cox. These former officials say that a broad interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley is unnecessary because of the expansive whistleblower anti-retaliation protections established by Dodd-Frank. The former FMR employees’ “policy argument is moot,” the brief says.

While the strong protections offered by Dodd-Frank diminish the importance of this specific case, the Supreme Court’s ruling will still be relevant, especially for cases brought before the newer law was passed, said Rebecca Katz, an attorney who represents whistleblowers at Motley Rice

Fewer amicus briefs were filed supporting the former employees than supporting the financial-services firm. A National Whistleblower Center brief points out that the text of Sarbanes-Oxley’s anti-retaliation provisions explicitly prohibit contractors and subcontractors from retaliating against employees.

For ongoing information on this case, check out its page on SCOTUSblog.

Under the ASU, inventory is “measured at the lower of cost and net realizable value,” which eliminates the need to determine replacement cost and evaluate whether it is above the ceiling net realizable value or below the floor. The FASB did not amend other guidance on measuring inventory, such as the LIFO, FIFO and average cost method. In addition to reducing complexity, the proposal would make U.S. GAAP more comparable to IFRS.

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